User blog comment:Dewface/Randomness/@comment-2006360-20101026200756/@comment-2006360-20101026201450

The Allegory of the Cave: Part Two
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if one of the prisoners is released and disabused of his error. At first, when he is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision. What will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, will he nor be perplexed? will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and helf fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun itself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light, his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now realities. The man will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and heavens, and he will last of all be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of it in the water, but he will see him in his own place, and not another, and he will contemplate him as the it is.